In the automobile and/or vehicle design industry and in automobile racing (professional and amateur), optimizing the suspension of a vehicle is critical to the vehicle's performance and safety. This may be especially true for the off-road vehicle industry including professional and/or consumer or recreational. However, there are few if any known methods that provide a user friendly interface with remote access to easily adjust the dampers and the performance of the suspension system, such as from the driver's seat or other remote location from the suspension system.
There are typically two types of suspension systems, passive systems and active systems. Passive systems are standard shock systems that are not adjustable, typically with a shock piston moving in oil. Although most passive shocks do not have adjustments, some passive shocks can have adjustable compression, rebound and/or spring preload. The current practice for optimizing passive systems includes, running the vehicle or race car through a plurality of test cycles or trial runs using a variety of different suspension setups which have to be manually adjusted (changing out shocks, manually adjusting the shocks, or revalving the shocks which may include disassembly, reconfiguring shims, pistons, bleed, etc., and reassembling), and then taking the results of those tests to determine the optimal suspension design. The test cycles and trial runs could include many different types of tests, including, laps around a test track or a seven post test, which can be time consuming and expensive. Active or adaptive suspension systems include technology with an onboard computer that detects body movement from sensors throughout the vehicle and, using data calculated by opportune control techniques, controls the action of the suspension. Active suspensions typically use separate actuators which can exert an independent force on the suspension to improve the riding characteristics. The drawbacks of active suspension system designs are high cost, added complication/mass of the apparatus, and the need for rather frequent maintenance on some implementations. In addition, maintenance and adjustment of the system can be problematic, since only a factory-authorized dealer will have the tools and mechanics with knowledge of the system, and some problems can be difficult to diagnose. Semi-active systems can only change the viscous damping coefficient of the shock absorber, and do not add energy to the suspension system. Though limited in their intervention (for example, the control force can never have different direction than the current vector of velocity of the suspension), semi-active suspensions are less expensive to design and consume far less energy.
Although there are adjustable shocks and systems, the known use of adjustable shocks and such adjustable systems, whether active or passive, do not provide a user with the option to adjust their suspension setup easily, if at all. For example, if a driver of a jeep or SUV wants to drive off-road, he might desire to have a certain suspension setup for off-road use and a different set up for his travel to the off-road site on roads. Thus, there is clearly a need for a suspension system that allows a user to easily adjust their damper setup and resulting suspension system. This type of adjustable suspension system may be of interest to persons or entities requiring adjustable variable damping dependant on position of the shock absorber. This relation can be required by, but not limited to, varying load conditions, speed conditions, terrain conditions, weather conditions, and occupant comfort conditions. Such an adjustable suspension system may be useful or required for research and development of vehicle platforms to optimize chassis configurations. Such entities may include, but are not limited to, the following: Racing Teams; Automotive Manufacturers; Motorcycle Manufacturers; Commercial vehicles manned, and or unmanned; Military vehicles manned, and or unmanned; Extraterrestrial vehicles manned, and or unmanned; etc.; and the like.
The instant invention is designed to addresses the above mentioned problems by providing a conveniently, remotely, electronically adjustable damper and system.